Sneak peek at Windows Live Folders

A new online folder feature from Microsoft called Windows Live Folders made a …

Microsoft's new Windows Live Folders feature still isn't ready for public release, but LiveSide noticed when system showed up online briefly, giving folks a chance to see what the Redmond-based software company has planned for the future in online storage.

Windows Live Folders is part of Microsoft's Windows Live effort to provide a number of online services to compete with Google and other "Web 2.0" companies, while at the same time giving users reasons to stick with Windows, such as Office integration. Windows Live Folders uses the same Windows Live ID that is used for other Live products such as Hotmail. Users upload files from a web browser (both Internet Explorer and Firefox are supported officially, but Opera probably won't be ruled out)

While the link is down currently, when it goes back live, users will have at least 500 MB of storage to play with (the final amount has yet to be determined), divided into three types of folders: personal folders, shared folders, and public folders. Personal folders are accessible only by the user, shared folders can be accessed by anyone the user gives permission to, and public folders are accessible by anybody. The site uses copious amounts of AJAX code to try and maintain a "snappy" feel.

Online storage, of course, is nothing new. Back in the heady days of the dotcom bubble, seemingly hundreds of different startup companies offered online "virtual drives" with varying amounts of storage. At the time, web storage was still a new idea, and the services ended up being used mainly by pirates to swap commercial content. Bandwidth costs and the immaturity of the online advertising market doomed most of these companies. However, these days, thanks to the popularity of online e-mail services like Hotmail and Gmail, users are more attuned to the idea of storing their documents online. Windows Live Folders itself is an evolution of an earlier Microsoft product, Windows Live Drive.

The area where the Windows Live Folders implementation could really shine over competing implementations is if Microsoft can integrate online storage with its offline products, such as Microsoft Office. Imagine an update to Office where storing a file in a Windows Live Folder was merely an extra click in the Save dialog box, or if an option was available to save a backup copy of each local document to a Windows Live Folder. This could make for a compelling combination and satisfy Microsoft's twin goals of competing both in the online and offline arenas.